Decorated junior ranger notches Lake Roosevelt

Three weeks into her latest foray and seven years after starting this adventure, the self-proclaimed most-decorated National Park Service junior ranger made it to Coulee Dam on Monday.

Aida Frey, 17, has, along with proud and devoted parents, been to more than 300 national parks since she was 9 years old.

That's when they met a couple dedicated park rangers who brushed aside quitting time at 5 p.m. to sign her up for the junior ranger program. She completed a workbook about the park at Effigy Mounds, Iowa and received her first badge, lighting a fire of enthusiasm for national parks.

Now she lugs around a collection of more than 800 in her parents' sedan as they travel each summer around the country, including plenty from other points of interest along the way, not in the nation's system of national parks, including a pin from a "boy band I like," she said.

Despite a long travel schedule in the summer (this year's intinerary stretches five weeks), Frey said she leads an otherwise normal life. "I do have friends," she said, noting one her pins actually came from Domino's Pizza, where a friend works.

Frey has not been to Maine, Hawaii or Alaska yet, and aside from the obvious alure of visiting the most beautiful spots in the nation, she said the expereince is teaching her good planning skills.

This trip took months to plan, her father, Shawn Frey, noted.

The eventual goal: Visit all 418 of those national parks.

She had 311 under her belt at the start of this trip, visiting 11 parks, including the Whitman Mission, the Manhattan Project, Mount Rainier, North Cascades and more, including the Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area.

The Coulee Dam office for which also serves as the headquarters for the National Ice Age Scenic Trail. Park officials were taking the occassion of her visit to launch an Ice Age Trail junior ranger program, a workbook for which will be published soon, at least online.

Frey, who has published a book, "America, Can I Have Your Autograph, The Story of Junior Ranger Aidav Frey," sells it through her social media sites.

She was headed from Coulee Dam to Fort Spokane on Monday, after a trip down the Grand Coulee.